


The Spirit of the Beast

by Teawithmagician



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark Fantasy, F/M, Fantasy, Het, Horror, Novel, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 00:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5891917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A preacher's daughter and a former military are to face the violent nature of a mountain wood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spirit of the Beast

A man walked upstream, trying to catch salmon with his bare hands. Did he think he was a bear, Vanessa laughed. He would better make a spear or a fishing rod, who in the world would catch a fish like that? It was inconvenient, difficult and left his pants wet from ankle to the knee, and he didn't look like he could survive pneumonia easily.

Maybe he thought that catching fish with his bare hands was exactly what the man, living in the wilderness, would do, Vanessa pestered, or maybe he didn't have a fishing rod or didn't know how to make it because he was too much of a town boy. To end his sufferings, he bought a fishing rod in the town over the river, which was flowing from the mountains into the valley, but it didn't make him more agile with the fish, so he quitted fishing and started hunting.

Vanessa lived up in the mountains, and the man lived down in the valley. That was a bad choice because the valley was mostly the plains: it was at a glance, and at rather a lazy glance to see everything that was going on there. There were no woods to conceal the smoke of the chimney, no rocks to hide the light of his windows, and the man looked exactly the hiding type. He lived alone, a dog guarding his door, starting at every single rustle, and tried not to ride to the town over the river often as though he was nervous of being remembered – Vanessa noticed that, too.

Vanessa liked to watch the man bustling in the yard, shouting at the dog and looking around suspiciously, always carrying his rifle with him. H was always anxious and it looked like he waited to be attacked for every second of his life, what Vanessa found especially amusing. Vanessa lived in the mountain woods alone, wild beasts lurking at her doors and wild creatures coming from the darkness of the night to scratch into her windows, and yet she was not afraid for her life, and the man was, though he was a man and had a rifle: both the criteria Vanessa had never really needed.

Vanessa called the man little though he was of average height. Still there was something small about him, going so wrong with his appearance like he tried to make himself smaller when he was, and, sometimes, succeeded. The man had a mousy coat with the traces of military garments, so Vanessa assumed he was hunted for what he did while wearing it. The man, though, wore the coat rarely, mostly when being drunk, and he didn't drink much because of his constant fear of being tracked down, maybe. Vanessa noticed regularity of the little man's drinking: there were days in the month he opened a bottle of whiskey, wore the coat and sang the songs.

Vanessa needed no man so desperately to watch the little man, living down the valley, as often as she did. She disapproved of his rat-like manners and was annoyed with his fear of nearly everyone and everything he revealed being alone. If he behaved in the other way, Vanessa could have called him pretty: he had black hair, almond-shaped eyes, accurate nose and small healthy teeth. Maybe in a coat of garments, riding a bloodstock horse at the head of the regiment he made quite an impression, but down in the valley, he was what he was: an amusing frightened little man.

The little man was afraid of being alone. He didn't seem comfortable on considering there was nothing behind his door but the raw wilderness, yet he got accustomed to it with the time being. Every night he let his dog out in the yard as he wanted to be warned of anyone and anything drawing near his cottage, after all, it seemed like he made himself believe that there was nobody coming for him. Since then, he stopped carrying his gun along while going to the privy, yet he still wasn't brave enough to ride to the town more often, as he was sheerly sick of the wildlife so much he even talked to his dog and himself. He would be shocked knowing Vanessa was still secretly watching him in the way nor him, neither his dog could find it out, but Vanessa wasn't going to show herself, so his inner peace was in no danger.

Immediately upon the little man lost the biggest part of his fear, he needed no reason to opening the whiskey, completely losing the regularity of it. That made the little man regain a part of his braveness, earlier oppressed by the fear, to start singing. His choice of songs wasn't diverse: sometimes he sang about the sea, still more often he sang about the war or the beautiful women, all dressed up in silks and crinolines. Sometimes Vanessa wondered what it would be like wearing a crinoline in the forest like a fairy-tale wizardess, and she decided it would be awful to be tight all around and hear your ribs cracking.

Vanessa must have admitted she liked the songs of the sea much more than the songs of the ladies. Under her circumstances, she would never pass for the lady from his songs, furthermore the sea sounded far more enthralling. Waves higher than the mountains on the endless surface wider than any lake Vanessa saw captured her imagination; there were also seagulls and the smell everyone who ever sensed it told it was unforgettable.

While Vanessa watched the little man down the valley, dreaming of the sea, things happened. One day she woke up with torn wounds all along her spine from shoulders to the coccyx. The wounds hurt unbearably, aching with every single move. What was interesting, Vanessa's dress over the wounds remained whole, and there were no footprints around her hut as well as no trace of presence inside of it. Somebody got into the hut to left those marks on Vanessa's pine, and, judging by how it was done, it that was obviously neither a human nor a beast.

Vanessa tried to wash her wounds with the water she dragged from the springhead of a jumpy mountain river, flowing wide, slow and lazy when coming into the valley, and to handle them with stinky brown ointment. It was hard to treat the wounds properly as Vanessa's hands couldn't reach the wounds on their full length, so she did the work somehow just to doze off right on her working table. Vanessa slept for half a day and a night, her dreams were full of nightmares, whispers and little sounds of the wood around her hut, became so intense they sounded like a choir, till the next morning Vanessa woke up with horns. Long deer horns grew from her head while she slept, so Vanessa hardly got out her dwelling to come to the little lake in the pine grow to see if what happened to her was real of she just got a fever.

The lake showed Vanessa's horns, which were long, deep-brown, suede-skinned and covered with dark green leaves and bright red berries all over. Stunned, Vanessa tore a berry from her horns, examining it carefully in the lake's reflection. It looked real, but unlike any berry Vanessa knew, and she knew the edible and poisonous flora of the woods even better than her full name. Not sure what she was supposed to do with the horn bush growing from her head, Vanessa bit the red berry and yipped – she felt pain. When she looked at down, she saw that there was no berry - she bitted her own finger to the blood, what felt so sweet and salty on the tongue.

Next day, the horns disappeared and the wounds closed by themselves, leaving nothing but bulging scars Vanessa found on examining her back. No matter if it was delirium, fever or a nightmare so vivid it felt real, when Vanessa slanted her eyes at her shadow, if he did it quick enough, she saw it horned. Some said that the things you've noticed with the corner of your eye but was unable to see if looking straight, were real... real for the Other World. Only the corner of the eye could catch them, and only if caught, they became real for this world, too, shining through the misty veil from their world to yours.

When Vanessa obtained again from her otherworldish experience, she went for a walk in the woods, to reckon on she acquired in the night. That was a thing expected to happen and Vanessa was happy to experience it at last, yet disturbed she couldn't interpret it properly. When she heard the roar of a bear, she didn't come to any conclusion, so her mind was open to get the message. The little man down the valley could have described it “wild”, but Vanessa knew it wasn't that kind wild: the bear's rights were struck as it had a trespasser in its territory. The bear was going to make a fast and a ruthless trial, sentencing the trespasser to death by what Vanessa used to call “the Law of the Wilds”.

The trespasser might have been a hunter from the town down the river as well as a roaming poacher, yet Vanessa believed she knew who trespasser was. How came he got that high up in the mountains? He traveled unwillingly even in the valley, didn't he have enough wildfowl and wood on his plains, or he ate everything that ran and flew, and went on his quest for more feather? Vanessa was angry with the little man, she ran so fast her feet hardly touched the ground. Or it wasn't her anger, it was her speed that increased, and her pace became so light it needn't hitting the ground?

Vanessa flew out of the grove, having managed to stop a few feet from the water's edge. It was the river there she drew water for cooking and cleaning, and in the middle of the stream, the struggle for life begun. The little man shot the bear, but he only wounded it, making the bear completely lose its mind. The sound of the gunfire, the dog's furious barking and the little man's shouts and cries echoed among the rocks, as the bear was going to tear him apart right after he would finish with the dog.

"Stop!" shouted Vanessa. Treetops were swinging with no wind like someone invisible was running on them. "Do not touch him!" She wasn't sure it would work, but she was going to try: it couldn't be that her invisible horns and the scars on her back were of no benefit.

The bear settled hash with the dog with one vicious blow of the paw. The dog was thrown aside, hitting the rock, billowing from the water and dividing the stream in two several feet higher the place where the bear got a grip of a little man's body. The clutch became tighter and tighter, cracking the little man's ribs, making his wild screams turn into the gurgling wheezes. The little man desperately tried, while he could, to carve the bear's hip with the knife, but the fur and the fat were too thick, and he only made the bear angrier.

"No!" Vanessa came on the bear, swinging her arms violently to make herself look bigger. "He is not your prey. Leave him. Too little meat in any way. Look, why wouldn't you go and find a fat deer for yourself or catch some fish? He is not even tasty, believe me," she muttered, conscious of the suicide she was committing. What if the horns weren't supposed her to shout at wild bears scot-free? What if Vanessa got wrong the whole omen and was going to pay for her ignorance?

The bear growled in a low voice in response, it seemed like it was something about Vanessa's voice that made bear hesitate, but it was too angry to obey. The little man in its clutch was unconscious, blood streaming down his face, Vanessa started to asking herself if he was alive when the bear attacked her. It fell on his front paws, the little man sliding down into the river, and roared deafeningly, opening the maw so wide Vanessa could see its curved sharp teeth and uterine darkness of its throat. Vanessa felt the bear's hot and heavy breath on her face, it smelled of rot and she recoiled in disgust when something made her roar back.

The sound coming from Vanessa's mouth was loud like rockfall. Vanessa knew how to imitate the voices of birds and animals just because it was useful, but she never knew she could roar like the wilderness itself, ferociously and stormily. The echo of Vanessa's unexpected, monstrous voice howled and bellowed and rumbled from the mouth of the river to the tops of the mountains. The bear backed away at the sound of it and rushed through the bushes, having left the shreds of his fur on the thorns for the only thing it cared about was to be as far from Vanessa as he could.

Vanessa stood upright, breathing heavily. The shadow she cast was of a horned woman with unnaturally drawn-out body, standing over the fainted little man, who was lying in the shallow stream, his pale face above the water. The shadow was long at tall as the pine trees, climbing the rocky hill over the river. Vanessa shuddered, she never thought about herself and her craft as of a threat, but at that very moment she considered them threatening, and she was scared.

Vanessa constrainedly withdrew her eyes from the shadow and looked at the little man's dog. It was dead, it's skull smashed open, pinkish mess splattered all over the stone. Its death was fast and mostly painless, and Vanessa turned to the little man, even so she was more concerned with her shadow than with his life or death. Vanessa could have left him lying in the water as there was nobody to judge on her. At that rate he wouldn't have too many chances to survive, as he was no fighter, and, as Vanessa was no murderer, she couldn't just go back to her hut, leaving him like this.

Vanessa seized the little man's grisly collar and dragged him out on the squashy bank of the river. He seemed heavier when she had to drag him like that, his boots and coat clinging on the rocks, covering the bottom of the river, Vanessa had to work hard just to get him out of the water. While Vanessa dragged the little man, she noticed her shadow grew back to normal, and though it comforted her a bit, she held the disturbing thoughts in mind as she suspected it wouldn't come to an end that easily.

The horns meant something, what Vanessa, for now, lacked understanding to define. While she was dragging the little man up the bank to the pine's roots, she suspiciously looked at her shadow; still it remained human, though very slow. When Vanessa took a step, her shadow took a half, moving its arms and legs as though she walking under the water. Vanessa's shadow trailed behind her so evidently she didn't need to slant her eyes to know it failed to follow her, and it made Vanessa explore her memory for the answers, but all that she had was more questions.

Vanessa's mother, who was the true child of the woods, used to say that Vanessa should be proud of herself, because she inherited her mother and not her father. But even if a Vanessa was considered a true heir to her mother, she had to watch out. The heritage was dangerous, and Vanessa knew it. It seemed to her the only way is to accept it, because, ignored, it could drive her crazy, but acceptance itself was a difficult path. Mother warned Vanessa that exploring her true self may alter her more than Vanessa expected, but when Vanessa said she was ready to face her destiny, he didn't mean facing it would be that intimidating.

Vanessa took the little man to the pines, his collar almost torn. No matter her inwardness and reflections, the necessary should have been done, so Vanessa unbuttoned his the jacket and the shirt under that ripped blooded gray coat of him. The little man's ribs were covered with bruises and abrasives, most of the bones were broken. Healing such wounds would take a lot of time, but Vanessa remembered of horns and felt like she was capable of more than the simple healing.

Vanessa put her hands on the little man's chest. She felt the heartbeat through the smashed ribcage while her mind was wandering far away, her thoughts dancing to the sound. Vanessa knew the routes, she felt the streams she walked for miles and miles in her daydreams and night wanderings. And when she knew it, Vanessa started sucking the pain out of him, as it was vital to spare the little man of suffering to give his body a breather before recovering it.

It was a hell of a work, pain twisting on Vanessa's fingertips like red hot needles all the time. Vanessa had to let the energy of suffering go before it would pass to her, making her rolling on the ground, screaming. She had a little time left, burning at the tips of the fingers seized Vanessa's palms, filling them with fiery pain. Whining, Vanessa pressed her hands to the ground, directing all the dark energy, torturing her, down, to the cradle of life and death itself – into the Earth. The earth smacked, devouring the pain, and Vanessa pulled her arms out of the black dirt the firm ground turned into, shaking off the mud which smelled with gore and decay, as the Earth itself was nothing but a giant corpse, sprouting throw with trees like fungus.

The pain was removed, but it was only the pain: there till were wounds to be treated. To heal them, Vanessa needed to give the little man's body strength to make strides, but there was the second problem: if she had Earth to get rid of the pain, she had no living being to transfer its energy into the little man's body to foothold its recovery. Vanessa couldn't find a substitution easily, and she had no time to go searching: after the pain was removed, she had to act quickly.

Vanessa pressed her hands to the little man's chest again, knowing it would hurt. She had no obligations of doing it for him, but Vanessa hated to fail. Even if there was nobody to see her failing, she would always know she failed, testing her powers, and would be displeased with herself for weeks and weeks. She received the powers, and she was going to use it, having the powers with no applying it was senseless, just like being the one of great capabilities nobody knew about felt so wrong Vanessa didn't even want to imagine.

Vanessa pressed her hands to the little man's chest so hard she felt her fingers sprouting into his flesh, concealing the bone shambles and the mess of meat and blood under his skin, which started to appear in dark lilac bruises. His flesh, his blood, it all danced to the distant heartbeat. Vanessa's heart danced to its own rhythm, but it heard another heart and it made her blood boiling, desiring to collide. Breathing slowly, Vanessa closed her eyes and let her heart join the dance.  
"It is dangerous, I know," whispered Vanessa. "If I can't do it, nobody can. So I will do it, I know I can and I will."

Vanessa squinted, her veins pulsing on her wrists, feeling the power she yielded up fulfilling his body, repairing what was broken. She weakened as the little man's breath become calm and hasteless, feeling slack but triumphant. From the land of the nightmares, the threshold of death the little man returned to the land of the living, and it was Vanessa who brought him back. That was Vanessa's victory, a thing even her mother was incapable of. She saved a man whose ribs was crushed into a complete mess! Vanessa heard that was possible, but there was nobody she knew who could do it like she did.

Vanessa put her hands away the little man's chest. There were two marks left on his skin, two burned hands, brown nipples between splayed fingers. A little cost of a great victory, what was it. Invictum, thought Vanessa, hear heart jumping out of her chest, blood pounding in her temples; one more word from her father's useless books, she was truly invictum that day. The horns made her so powerful, she could nearly raise the man from the dead! That was why she got them, because she needed a vessel of the power her body wasn't able to contain.

Staggering, Vanessa stood up on her feet, coming back down to the river. She fell on her knees into the creaky sand, splattering the handfuls of water it into her sweaty face, pouring the water over the collar, wiping the hands on the hair. After Vanessa got enough splattering, she suddenly realized how thirsty she is and leaned over the water like an animal, starting to drink greedily, coughing and choking on her hastiness.

What made Vanessa stop and listen was the silence, surrounding her. It seemed like there were no sounds left in the mountains, but snortle and splashes Vanessa made. Silence fell like a quiet blizzard, the absence of sound was overwhelming, it made her ears hurt and long for anything but it. Vanessa, still standing on her knees, raised her head and looked at the sky what made a distant rumbling sound in response to her mute prayer. She saw black clouds coming from the behind the mountains, outstretching over the valley menacingly.

Something terrible was about to happen, and it surrounded Vanessa and the fainted man, coming not only from the cloud – from everywhere, and, especially, from the forest. Treetops were swinging with no wind, as though it was something stirring it, running, jumping from one to another, when it appeared. Vanessa knew he was there, yet she was afraid to look at it, so it made her raise her eyes and see it. On the another bank of the river, at the line between the wood and the running water, stood the Beast, its body dressed in wooly fur, its horns covered with dark leaves and berries red like blood. Red like blood its eyes were, just like his lipless mouth, full of pale, sharp teeth.


End file.
